K.O. Lee in Aberdeen to close after 120 years

April 18, 2008

ABERDEEN - No firm date has been determined, but Aberdeen's 120-year-old K.O. Lee manufacturing plant will close, company officials say. The plant, which makes and sells grinding machines for the machine tool industry, will stay open a couple more months, officials said. Attempts to sell the business in recent years have failed. The decision is due to business and family reasons, according to Krestie Utech, chairwoman of K.O. Lee's board of directors. Demand for the company's product and a sluggish global economy have made it difficult, said Utech and Rich Hickman, the firm's president and chief executive officer. All but one of K.O. Lee's 29 employees are based in Aberdeen. The average term of service for employees was 29 years, Utech and Hickman said. Knute Oscar Lee founded the company in 1888 to sell farm equipment. His son, Clifford Carl Lee, took over the business later. All board members must be descendants of the founder. Utech, of Rochester, N.Y., is the founder's granddaughter. Customers have ranged from small tool and die shops to large corporations that needed tool grinders, surface grinders and cylindrical grinders, according to company information. K.O. Lee has been bringing in people from other area employers to discuss any jobs they might have available, said Hickman. ''It's very important to me,'' said Hickman, who has been with the company since December 1996. ''It's very important to the (Lee) family.'' He said the has always respected its employees. ''They wanted to end it that way,'' Hickman said.